Five architecture offices present scenarios for their metropolitan regions

Two-week exhibition is basis for jury’s decision

Presentation of the Award on 18 October in Istanbul

Tomorrow’s urban life and mobility are key issues for Audi. The exhibition for the second Audi Urban Future Award shows how people will live and work in their cities in the future. From 12 October five international architecture offices are presenting their visions in the Hasköy Spinning Factory in Istanbul. The exhibition opens officially today and will continue until 26 October.

The five renowned architecture practices from the metropolitan regions of Boston-Washington, Istanbul, Mumbai, the Pearl River Delta and São Paulo are communicating their ideas for the ever-expanding cities of the future. Here it becomes clear that traditional concepts of mobility are outdated, that rapidly growing megacities require creative solutions. Urban dwellers move through their city as if in an adventure playground. They use parking spaces that can be flexibly substituted by green spaces. They are mobile below the ground and in the air.

Each of the five architecture practices is presenting its vision for the future in its own space. Visitors are taken away to the labyrinthine streets of Mumbai or get to know the purely functional infrastructure of the Pearl River Delta, which neglects the quality of life for people. They understand why the American dream has got lost between Boston and Washington – and how it might be possible to regain it. And they experience the noise and chaotic traffic of the megacities São Paulo and Istanbul.

As all the proposals clearly demonstrate: Every city is different, but many of the issues are the same. The exhibition shows the main trends that will determine tomorrow’s metropolises around the world. In the future, too, arteries and intersections of traffic can be expected to mark large cities in which, the architects believe, automobiles will continue to play a major role – though this role will change.

The ideas were produced by the architecture practices CRIT (Mumbai), Höweler+ Yoon Architecture (Boston/Washington), NODE Architecture & Urbanism (Pearl River Delta), Superpool (Istanbul), and Urban-Think Tank (São Paulo). The architecture office NKBAK from Frankfurt created the architecture of the exhibition in close cooperation with Stylepark, the curator of the Audi Urban Future Initiative.

The Award presentation starts the specific implementation of an idea

An interdisciplinary jury will award the prize worth 100,000 euros to the best vision on 18 October 2012 in Istanbul. It is looking for proposals that convincingly show how urban structures can shape the interaction between mobility and architecture in an attractive and sustainable way. This task was defined by the Audi Insight Team: nine Audi experts from strategically important departments who have participated in the whole process of the Award, from the briefing to the presentation. They transfer into the company the insights that result from this collaboration. The aim is to learn more about the future of cities and what that means for the automobile of tomorrow.

The Award presentation will take place on the evening of 18 October 2012 on the Suada, an event location in the middle of the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. And the project will continue: On the basis of the winning proposals a detailed city dossier will be produced with data such as demography, infrastructure and resources – a set of operating instructions, as it were, for implementing the idea in the winner’s metropolitan region.

Partnerships with the New Museum (New York) and Istanbul Design Biennial

The New Museum in New York City is partner of the Audi Urban Future Award. In the context of this cooperation a number of panel debates will be held under the motto “Ideas City Istanbul”. Amanda Burden, director of the New York City Planning Department, will speak at the exhibition opening on 11 October, and discussion groups will be held on 12 and 19 October with the author Suketu Mehta; the founder of Kickstarter, Yancey Strickler; the founder of Architizer, Marc Kushner; the founder of Urbanscale, Adam Greenfield; and others (www.newmuseum.org/ideascity ). Audi is also a program partner of the first Istanbul Design Biennial, which will be held from 13 October to 12 December 2012: www.istanbuldesignbiennial.iksv.org

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